Does the name Neetzan Zimmerman mean anything to you? If you’re interested in driving a lot more traffic to your website (for free), he’s a good model.

Now to be perfectly honest, his name meant nothing to me until this morning when I read an interesting article in the WSJ titled, Why Everyone Will Totally Read This Column. The article focuses on how Mr. Zimmerman at creating content that goes viral at the news & entertainment site, Gawker. According ...

Here’s an interesting observation from David Droga, who was recently interviewed in Esquire Magazine on the state of the advertising industry.

It’s called the Strongest Story Wins

“Name the strongest man in America. I bet the first image that comes to mind is the Hulk. Or superman. Paul Bunyan, even. Not Derek Poundstone, the three-time winner of the America’s Strongest Man competition and the only real person in this paragraph. That’s because no one gives a shit about Derek. Only the strongman ...

Just back from the anual trip to beautiful Decatur Tennessee to can tomatoes. It’s good to periodically get out of one’s comfort zone, and Decatur TN is certainly that for me. But it’s also a great chance to visit our dear friends Gregg and Jane Gesse, so it’s become somewhat of a ritual.

Today, I want to share a highly effective strategy for getting prospective clients to raise their hands and express an initial interest in the services you provide. In order to do that we need to visit your website.

If I landed on your website, what would I find? As a highly generalized answer, I’d imagine that it would be a reasonably attractive landing page that described what you did to a largely generic audience. I’d also guess that there would be ...

As I discussed in my last article, among the business growth strategies one can implement, deciding what market to focus on is an often overlooked element. Niche marketing is critical simply because there are so many voices attempting to get our attention. Breaking through the clutter of noise is mission #1.

Which leads to the next question, what niche market should I focus on? It’s certainly likely that over time you’ll develop multiple niche campaigns, but we need to start with ...

The recent meetings between Facebook’s Carolyn Everson and senior marketing leaders from Coca-Cola, Unilever and Wal-Mart, underscores the disconnect between “popular” marketing activities and those that can be held accountable for results.

I’ve long been skeptical of most social meeting platforms, despite the zealots who claim that significant business comes from Tweeting and Liking and Pinging Pictures (or whatever Pinterest’s value proposition is). Given the community I serve, LinkedIn is about the only social platform that makes sense, but even ...

It’s one thing to offer a free report on your website in order to capture opt-in information on visitors. Unfortunately, it’s often an entirely different ballgame to actually get people to request and read it.

So let’s change that.

There are 2 things you want to focus on.

#1 is a great HOOKY HEADLINE. I’ve written about this extensively elsewhere.

A common challenge most business owners face is how to differentiate themselves from their competition. As many can attest, developing a marketing statement that conveys what is unique or different about your business has become increasingly difficult.

So what truly makes your business unique? Interestingly the one thing that you want to focus on has little to do with your actual product or service. It has nothing to do with your opinion about how great it is. What makes your business ...

Whether it’s a free report, a sales letter, email or some other type of marketing promotion, the first (and arguably most important) step is to get people to stop what they’re doing and pay attention to you.

This point was brought home by a great advertising headline I saw this morning that incorporates many of the elements of a great hook. Let’s analyze it.

The headline is:

Memory Pill Does for the Brain What Prescription Glasses Do for the Eyes, Claims US Surgeon ...